BackInTex wrote: SSS, guns are dangerous. I'll agree. Cars are dangerous. Skateboards are dangerous. ATVs are dangerous. Downhill skiing is dangerous. So is sky diving.
Skateboards may be dangerous, but they pose a danger almost exclusively to those who use them. I have no worries about being injured by a skateboard.
Cars are dangerous, and I'm concerned about being injured in a car accident. However, the utility that cars provide significantly to me personally and to society as a whole outweigh the danger. Further, I make the decision to drive and subject myself to that risk.
However, guns pose a danger to anyone within shooting distance of the gun, so there's nothing I can do, other than barricade myself in my home and hope for the best, to avoid that risk. If the idiots who misused guns only put themselves at risk, as do skateboarders and skydivers, I could accept that. However, the parents of that 12-year-old boy in my earlier post didn't just put themselves at risk, they caused the death of an innocent child. And, since that child might well have been playing with someone else's child when the gun went off, they could have caused the death of a complete stranger.
We're increasingly making a decision in our society to prevent smokers from putting others at risk by indulging their habit in public places. Unfortunately, we're going in the other direction with gun owners, allowing them to put more people at risk in more situations in the name of the Second Amendment.